Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin Intermediate Feiwel 226 pp. 10/14 978-0-312-64300-3 $16.99 g e-book ed. 978-1-250-06423-3 $9.99 Eleven-year-old Rose’s “official diagnosis is high-functioning autism.” She lives with her single dad, who does not have the resources, material or emotional, to be a parent. At school she is laughed at by her classmates. Her life […]

Neighborhood Sharks: Hunting with the Great Whites of California’s Farallon Islands by Katherine Roy; illus. by the author Primary, Intermediate Macaulay/Roaring Brook 48 pp. 9/14 978-1-59643-874-3 $17.99 g Look closely at the cover of this impressive account of great white sharks off the Northern California coast: that bright red in the illustration is blood trailing […]

Picture This: Perception and Composition by Molly Bang; illus. by the author Intermediate Bulfinch/Little 141 pp. 9/91 Paper ed. 0-8212-1855-7 $12.95 With a forward by Rudolf Arnheim. If I could buy only one book this year, this would be the one. If I could take only one book on a long cavation, this would be […]

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann; photos by various artists High School Greenwillow 106 pp. 10/14 978-0-06-228957-5 $17.99 g e-book ed. 978-0-06-228959-9 $9.99 For this poet, there is no dividing line between fairy tales and reality: “You can lose your way anywhere,” claims the poem with which she begins this collection […]

Draw! by Raúl Colón; illus. by the author Primary Wiseman/Simon 40 pp. 9/14 978-1-4424-9492-3 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-1-4424-9493-0 $10.99 A young artist, inspired by his books about African animals, is transported to an imaginary safari in this dreamy wordless book. Armed only with his pencil, sketch pad, and easel, this budding Leonardo finds his models […]

Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire Middle School Candlewick 479 pp. 9/14 978-0-7636-7220-1 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-0-7636-7582-0 $17.99 An imprisoned man tells his story, Scheherazade-like, in letters to the tsar. He begins with Elena, a young girl in the impoverished Russian countryside who is nursing her dying mother and who has witnessed her brother […]

Pom and Pim by Lena Landström; illus. by Olof Landström; trans. from the Swedish by Julia Marshall Preschool Gecko 32 pp. 3/14 978-1-877579-66-0 $16.95 Pom is a small child with sparse orange curls, clad in a long purple sweater; Pim is Pom’s inanimate sidekick of indeterminate species: a dirty pink, with two eyes and four […]